The first time I used cold fermentation was in bread baking and was instructed to use cold water. I'm pretty sure it was talked about in bread bakers apprentice. I'm not sure why you would want a dough that warm for a cold ferment, if part of the benefit is to delay the action of the yeast so more sugar/flavor can be released from the flour. I always use cold water and try to keep the dough cool for cold ferments.

Using Craig's great table of percentages/time/temperature http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=ad51dbaa44fc830da68c8400970c6442&topic=22649.0, I decided to test out the lower temperature range, with a 66 hour ferment at 55 degrees made up of 42 in bulk, then balled. After 12 hours balled, I noticed that the dough had pretty much doubled (and put in an emergency PM to Craig). Decided to reball with 10 hours until bake time (couldn't get the bottom to seal properly, likely because of the EVOO that I used to lube the containers). Craig warned that it might make the balls a little hard to open, and combined with my 65 degree cheapskate room temperature, that was certainly the case. While I made the dough for a 16.5" pie at 0.9 TF, I couldn't get it to stretch past around 15", so it was a little thick for me (12 year old critic said, "Dad I really like it like this." #@*&%$, muttered Dad).

4:30 on my new 3/4" soapstone tile at 540 degrees (Scott... you were right about it taking a little longer than a Glutenboy dough). Nice eggshell crunch, bottom was a little more crisp than last weekend's Glutenboy baked at 3:50). Nice cornicione on the cheese pie (which I could stretch a little better). Broccoli pie (second one) was just too thick, and it affected the crumb.

The big surprise was the taste of sourness that was apparent. 12 year old critic caught it right away. I called it a subtle hint. He called it "way more than a subtle hint... more like a strong suggestion... or maybe an insistent demand." That's when I noticed that the sour taste kept building in my mouth, like a lingering finish to a good glass of wine (I like the wine better than the sourness, which seemed a little out of place... I like it in a bread).

I'm thinking that I will either cut back on the starter (maybe 5%) or decrease the time (to around 55 hours) next time, even though that puts me out of whack with Craig's calculations (I'm playing at the outer limit of his yellow range, so I now that I'm already an the outlier). Reactions?

Barry,Thank you for the great write up about your "whole new experience tonight".It's always fun to read about your continuing experiments with pizza. And I also like how your critic continues to hone" critic-ness" skills.

Great looking pies there, Barry. It also looks pretty much like a perfect bake on the soapstone. Now, like you said, it's just a matter of dialing in your starter/time ratio to get the flavor profile you want.

Steve: I think you hit the nail on the head. I'm really liking this new soapstone tile, and it's much more "back-friendly" than the steel plate that I tried out in the fall. I'm also wondering whether I let the starter "mature" a bit too much - it had tripled in volume, but it hadn't domed yet.

Let the experimenting continue.

Barry

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scott123

Seriously, though, I am by no means an expert on SD, but I believe you can mitigate bacterial activity with washing- adding a little starter to a lot of water and flour at room temp, letting the yeast activity build and then repeating. This should favor yeast over bacteria.

At least, I think that's the gist of it. I'm probably way off. Someone will correct me, or, if they don't, do a search on 'washing.'

Keep in mind that acid is a browning inhibitor, so your exceedingly sour dough is probably skewing the bake results a bit. A less sour dough probably will fall somewhere in between Glutenboy's and this one.

Seriously, though, I am by no means an expert on SD, but I believe you can mitigate bacterial activity with washing- adding a little starter to a lot of water and flour at room temp, letting the yeast activity build and then repeating. This should favor yeast over bacteria.

At least, I think that's the gist of it. I'm probably way off. Someone will correct me, or, if they don't, do a search on 'washing.'

Keep in mind that acid is a browning inhibitor, so your exceedingly sour dough is probably skewing the bake results a bit. A less sour dough probably will fall somewhere in between Glutenboy's and this one.

Scott: I was waiting for something like that! I know about washing starter, and, from the smell of it (the starter), I don't think that was the issue. Given how much rise I got out of it, I just think I need to dial back on the amount (or the ferment time) next time. I guess I owe you a 3-day Lehmann with IDY? Goldilocks, indeed !

Barry

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I'm thinking that I will either cut back on the starter (maybe 5%) or decrease the time (to around 55 hours) next time, even though that puts me out of whack with Craig's calculations (I'm playing at the outer limit of his yellow range, so I now that I'm already an the outlier). Reactions?

Is it right that there was no salt in your formula? If not, that certainly contributed to the rapid fermentation.

Also, if I remember right, you told me that you used a non-contact thermometer to determine your 55F temp. Point it at 5 different things, and you can get 5 different results based on the emissivity of the object. It could easily be giving you a reading that is off by a couple degrees, and that too would make a big difference. I'd be curious to know if you get the same result with a traditional thermometer that you know to be calibrated correctly.

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"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza." Craig's Neapolitan Garage

Is it right that there was no salt in your formula? If not, that certainly contributed to the rapid fermentation.

Also, if I remember right, you told me that you used a non-contact thermometer to determine your 55F temp. Point it at 5 different things, and you can get 5 different results based on the emissivity of the object. It could easily be giving you a reading that is off by a couple degrees, and that too would make a big difference. I'd be curious to know if you get the same result with a traditional thermometer that you know to be calibrated correctly.

Good points, Craig. I did use 2% salt, but forgot it in my post (fixed now). My setup was a cooler directly on my concrete pad floor, which is pretty constant in temperature, with the dough containers directly on the floor of the cooler. I took readings at the 4 points corners around the cooler and directly underneath to start, as well as 2 points on the bottom of the cooler. All readings were within 0.3 degrees, so I assumed I was OK. Of course, that doesn't account for the possibility that the IR thermometer isn't calibrated properly. If I was thinking straight, I would have used my thermapen in the dough. I just put a glass of water inside the cooler, and will check after letting the water temperature settle for a couple of hours and post the results.

The other variables that I'm wondering about are the flour used (I assume your table is based on Caputo, which different protein level, different consistency), and the strength/liveliness of the starter... my Ischia seems to be be pretty powerful in my bread baking. All questions and speculation on my part.

This is what makes experimenting fun (and occasionally frustrating) for me.

Barry

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You were right, Craig. My thermapen (which I trust) reads exactly 2 degrees warmer than the IR thermometer. According to your predictive model, that would mean a total of 56 hours instead of the 68 (I actually used 66) hours that I thought it would need. That's a LOT of extra fermentation time. Mystery cleared up. Not a bad guess up above at reducing the fermentation time to 55 hours.

Thanks. I'll try again.

Barry

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